All Summer Long
by Sodamnparanoid
Summary: Poppy Walker pulled into the driveway of her friend's new Californian Villa styled mansion and killed the engine of her black 68 Mustang. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen her oldest friends (save five minutes before or after a gig if they were in the area), but hopefully the proposition she had in mind was going to change that. At least for the summer anyway.


**1.**

**The invitation.**

Poppy Walker pulled into the driveway of her friend's new Californian Villa styled mansion and killed the engine of her black 68 Mustang. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen her oldest friends (save five minutes before or after a gig if they were in the area), but hopefully the proposition she had in mind was going to change that. At least for the summer anyway.

"Are you coming babe?" Poppy asked, looking back at her tall Quarterback boyfriend with her eyebrows raised. She had already turned slightly in her seat and pushed the car door open when she realised the guy next to her hadn't even unbuckled his seat belt, let alone moved an inch yet. He was too busy checking out his perfectly foiled and meticulously-styled-to-look-effortless hairdo that he paid his stylist to recreate identically every morning in the side mirror.  
"Yeah babe. Just making sure the money-maker can still turn a profit." He laughed too hard at his own joke before climbing out of the car and moving around the back to help his girlfriend out from her seat. Poppy rolled her eyes but took his hand anyway when he offered it to her. Sure, he was vain and a bit of a moron, but he looked after her and loved her and sometimes he even made her smile. So vanity and self-indulgence be damned in her opinion. "So who are these guys again?" He added as an afterthought. For the sixth time since leaving their hotel room.  
"My oldest friends. Their mother kind of took me in after mine died and my dad went to jail. Remember? We talked about this twenty minutes ago."  
"Oh yeah, that's right." Chip had resumed preening himself using his iPhone's front camera and wasn't paying attention in the slightest as they walked up the driveway. Poppy huffed and sped off towards the front door.

She didn't bother knocking when she reached the front door. Instead she just smoothed the material of her dark grey pencil skirt and light pink blouse and opened it.  
"Oh Gentlemen." Poppy poked her head around the ornate oak front door and called into what revealed itself to be one of the most understated but beautiful Latin styled entry way.  
"THE BOY FROM OZ" She heard the brothers shout in unison and what sounded like a stampede racing to make its way down the stairs.  
"Don't call me that." These days, you could barely hear the faintest traces of her once thick Australian accent. She laughed as she stepped around the door, leading Chip in behind her, their hands linked together.  
"What's with the Monkey suit, Pops?" Vic was the first to speak, pulling her into a bone crushing hug and kissing her on the forehead once he'd let her go.  
"And where'd all this come from?" Mike chimed in, tugging on the long dirty blonde fishtail braid that reached her waist. It must have been a lot longer since she'd last seen the brother's then. She hadn't worn her hair short in over two years.  
"Guys stop. There's someone I'd like you to meet." She gestured to Chip who usually seemed to tower over everybody, but seemed to have shrunken about half a foot at the sight of the tall, olive-skinned, tattooed, pierced, and frankly smelly (after a day of unpacking boxes in the Californian summer) brother's who stood before him. In his little social corner, the closest thing anybody got to a tattoo was accidentally embedding some greylead in your palm from accidentally stabbing yourself with a pencil. "Chip Tripworth, Meet Michael and Victor Fuentes. Michael and Victor Fuentes, meet Chip Tripworth" The brother's groaned at the use of their full names, but quickly stopped when they caught the warning expression on Poppy's face. She mouthed_Boy from Oz _at them and resumed holding her boyfriend's hand. "Chip is the new Quarterback for the Chargers. Mike and Vic, are in some kind of band together or something." Poppy winked at her friends, letting them know she had a plan for this one. Every so often, people would come into her life who were kind of ignorant of anything that wasn't one hundred percent considered the norm, and every so often they'd convince people that Mike and Vic were in some nobody band being supported by their parents. They liked to see how long it would take someone to do a little online browsing and figure out who they were. The change in attitude the moment they knew was always hilarious.  
"Yeah, it was so cool of our dad to buy us this place so we could rehearse and stuff you know man. Hey, beer?" Mike offered Chip a drink, leading him into the kitchen with his arm draped over Chip's shoulder, talking about how excited he was to be living near the Hollywood sign and to even get to see a real celebrity someday. Poppy shot him a meaningful look as he walked past, winking at her.

"Vic, I -" Poppy started, awkwardly threading her pinkies together and opening her palms as she stepped towards him once she was completely sure that they were alone.  
"Don't worry about it kiddo." He winked at her and gave her another hug. For a moment, Poppy lost herself against that old familiar heartbeat that used to carry her through so much shit. The night her mother died, she listened to that heartbeat for so long that things started sounding weird without it. "Let's not open that can of worms just now." He was different sometimes. There were moments when she was alone with him, that Vic wouldn't have a filter with Poppy. He didn't need to. He smiled at her, reassuring Poppy that he was completely fine, and reached out to punch her in the arm. "Hey, it's cool."  
"It's been so long, Vic." She grabbed his arm and lead him over to the sofa, silently thanking Mike for giving them a few minutes to themselves. As much as she loved the brothers equally, there was always a closeness between Vic and Poppy that nothing could really explain, and sometimes that meant they needed their alone time to actually say what they need to.  
"I know man. Too long." He nodded in agreement before cocking his head towards the kitchen. "Speaking of things that have nothing to do with what we're talking about, how does a girl like you end up with a guy like that. No offence," He added quickly, stopping the protests he could see rising to Poppy's lips. "It's just - isn't he a bit too much of a cliché. I mean the guy's name is-"  
"Chip Tripworth. I know." Poppy cut in, a smirk taking place of the protests. "Believe me, I know. It's a family thing, or something. You know what, I don't really know." She laughed, trying – and failing – to rationalise her boyfriend of two years' name.  
Chip appeared back in the living room with Mike shooting apologetic looks all over the general direction of Vic and Poppy.  
"Hey baby, Trev just called me, he and the guys are out front. They want to take me to the bar for some post-press drinks. So I'll catch you later, okay?"  
"Chip, are you serious?" Poppy asked as he started walking away, oblivious to his girlfriend's displeasure.  
"Yeah babe. Why, do you want to come?"  
"No chip, I don't want to come." She snapped, folding her arms across her chest and sighing. Chip didn't even break stride at her sudden outburst.  
"Okay baby." He shrugged and opened the front door. A surge of noise from outside flooded the house before he closed the door again leaving a minutely uncomfortable silence in its wake.  
"At least you know you won't be disturbed by passing traffic." Poppy mused eventually, wiping a chunk of something off of her phone screen with her thumb, refusing to make eye contact with her friends.  
"Poppy are-" Mike made a bee line for Poppy with his arms extended to hug her.  
"I'm fine. It's just chip. You know?" She played it off like it was nothing before putting her phone back into her bag and asking where the bathroom was, ignoring Mike's offer for a hug.

Making her way down the hall, Poppy's mind was clouded with a sense of doubt about how serious Chip really was about her. It seemed like the moment he was around the boys – or at the very least – in a relatively limited proximity (ie: a short drive away) – she fell to the wayside. She was happy for Chip, his happiness was invaluable to her, but the careless bachelor lifestyle was starting to feel almost like a slap in the face for something she'd been in for so long.  
Finding her target, Poppy closed the bathroom door behind her and slid down until she was sitting on the tiles. "Fucking chip." She mumbled to herself, resting her head against the door. For a while, Poppy sat on the cool bathroom tiles, staring at the scar on her ankle she picked up the night they had met. The guy he was back then barely existed anymore. She recalled dancing drunkenly on the barrier that separated the paved pathway from the beach a measly three feet below. Pacing, she told the soft eyed, gentle smiled boy about her mother dying not so long ago, and the guy she thought she'd grow up to marry making a joke of her. She remembered him telling a joke and her slipping onto the sand below her, cutting her leg in the process. He'd picked her up and carried her to the benches underneath the street light. He pulled a (clean) handkerchief from his pocket and cleaned it up. The whole time, she had butterflies, the whole time, she stared at his eyelashes that seemed to go on forever. Every so often his greenish-blue eyes connecting with her blue ones, making her stomach tie in a knot for a few seconds.

Poppy was brought back to reality by the sound of movement outside the bathroom door. Someone stubbing their toe, swearing furiously and impressively under their breath, and another voice telling them to shut the fuck up. She got to her feet, realising she had been in there for a lot longer than she intended. Long enough for the brothers to give new life to their time-honoured tradition of screaming outside the bathroom door if someone – anyone – was in there for anything even resembling too long.  
"Poppy... Do we need to burn the house down?" Mike called in a weary voice.  
"Do you need a laxative?" Vic joined in the chorus of ridiculous questions the brothers wer firing off, pausing for a moment. "Or maybe we could send someone in to help push it out." He paused again "Shotgun not." an afterthought that made a world of difference.  
"Oh man." Mike groaned in response. The sound of exaggerated breathing crept under the door. "If I'm not back in ten minutes, I'd like a polished Oak casket." He jostled the door handle as he smacked the frame.  
"You two haven't changed a bit." She laughed, wiping a stray tear from her cheek and turning around to face the door.  
"You have." Mike mumbled as Poppy opened it. She raised her eyebrows, not entirely sure whether she should be complimented or creeped out. She settled on a healthy balance of both and started walking back towards the staircase and into the living room, winking at Vic as she passed, letting him in on her joke.  
"Bro..." Vic said quietly, shaking his head. "What the fuck."  
"No – I didn't mean – I just meant that -" His features shifted from concerned to amused as he realised that his brother and best friend were completely messing with him. "Fuck you guys." He smirked at them, turning on his heel and heading towards his bedroom. Reappearing a moment later with an inflatable cutlass he'd convinced their grandmother to autograph once. He started violently whacking the two of them until all three were sitting in the hallway clutching their sides with pain from laughing so hard. You couldn't wipe the smile off of Poppy's face. In the twenty minutes she'd been hanging out with Vic and Mike, she'd laughed more than she had in the last three years combined. There was just something about their senses of humour that clicked so well together. To anybody else they seemed like nut cases who clearly just lacked maturity, but they didn't care about that in the slightest. Poppy felt like she could actually be herself around them.

It had been that way ever since she and her family had moved half-way across the world and the weird boy who played guitar insanely well came home from school with her brother one day when their mother was out and their father was at work and sat with her while her brother was getting changed or something, and told her to keep drawing the picture of the rose in front of her, because he wanted to take it home with him to stick on his wall. At the time, she was a six-year-old girl who'd never seen a boy other than her brother who never really made friends where they used to live, and he was a sixteen year old who had a natural affinity for kids and just happened to think that this particular one was pretty special. Now, fourteen years later, none of them really spoke to or about her brother, and they were probably the closest friends anybody could possibly be.

By the time the trio had managed to compose themselves and make their way back into the living room, grabbing refreshments on the way, Poppy had almost completely forgotten about her confusion and hurt. She was back to the bouncy-happy Poppy that was thrilled to be seeing her friends. They sat on the couch silently, watching one of those tipping birds that look like they're trying to drink the glass of water. Except this one was four feet tall.  
"Some fan sent it to us." Vic shrugged, getting to his feet and throwing the sheet back over it. "It's creepy."  
"No it's not." Poppy laughed. "It's just over the top. It's a nice gesture. Be grateful."  
"We are grateful. But we're also humans. And sometimes rational humans get the heeby-geebies creeped out of them by giant birds with extreme feather tails. I didn't even know feathers came that big."  
Poppy ignored his outcry and turned her attention to Mike, who was looking at his phone every few seconds.  
"Am I keeping you from something?" Poppy asked concerned.  
"No. I've just been flat-out lately."  
"Oh, okay." Poppy shrugged, not really sure what to follow-up their conversation with. Her eyes traveled back to the bird, now covered by the sheet, causing the sheet to bob up and down rhythmically. It was almost hypnotising.  
"So do you still see Ash-Lee?" Mike asked suddenly, causing both Poppy and Vic – whose heads were unconsciously bobbing up and down with the bird – to jump. "That's her name, right?"  
"Yeah, I guess. I mean, I see her whenever she has a stopover in town or she takes a few weeks off from work, but otherwise not really. She's currently the office pet. Right now she's showing off her talents for our boss in Italy with some new "tween hit" they just signed, and tomorrow she's in France. She's calling me from the Eiffel Tower. I cannot exaggerate how excited I am by this. Why?"  
"Just curious. I just know you two were close. It was nice to see you with friends who didn't used to pick you up from Middle School." He shrugged, rising to his feet. "Anyway I hate to walk out on our catch up, but I've got an interview I have to get to, so I'll see you tonight. You don't have any plans right? We're having a campfire, yeah?"  
"Well, kind of – I'm supposed to be going out for Dinner with Chip since it's our anniversary, but..."  
"But?" Vic asked, sliding closer to her and raising an eyebrow. Poppy turned her head to see that Mike was leaning in towards her doing the same thing.  
"If I know chip – and after this long, you'd hope I do. He's going to ring me at... well, our reservation is at eight, so let's say he gives me an hour... I'd say he's going to ring me around seven to tell me he can't make it, so I daresay I'm in!" Poppy slammed her can of coke down on the coaster in front of her on the coffee table triumphantly and stood up.  
"I've just got to race back to my hotel room and grab a couple of things real quick. I'll be back later though. Maybe an hour?" She, checking the time.  
"Cool, well I'll make a supplies run." Vic smiled, swiping his car keys from the couch beside him and standing up beside his brother.  
"Synchronise fake watches... _Now._" The trio put their bare wrists together as they spoke, pretending to synchronise their non-existent watches and made their way towards the door.


End file.
